Sep. 6, 2013

Ryan Ludwick on a wild-card game: “One bad play, one mistake, can cost you the season." / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

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The pennant race is treading water. Adding a second wild card team was supposed to juice up September more than steroids ever could. While the format increases the chances that a possible 90-win club such as the Reds will be rewarded, this year it has also had the unintended effect of watering down this last month of games.

The Reds are in the playoffs. This has been all but fact for at least two weeks. No team will catch them. Not the Diamondbacks, who don’t have the starting pitching to win three games in a row, let alone seven or eight, and not the Nationals, who got competent too late.

The suspense is entirely in the seeding. The Reds, Pirates and Cardinals are in a thrilling chase to see who avoids the one-game, wild-card lightning round. Don’t everyone stroke out with excitement at once. We’ll have to call the paramedics.

Adding a second wild card team isn’t producing the expected fever. It’s one of those years when National League drama isn’t widespread. Pennant races can’t be scripted, and so in Los Angeles and Atlanta, they sit with their spikes propped up on the dugout railing, spitting Skoal and awaiting October.

That doesn’t make the wild-card format a bad idea.

What is a bad idea is that the wild card teams get only one game. That defies baseball’s character.

The beauty and truth of baseball is revealed slowly. The game rewards grinding and persistence and overcoming. None of those traits is remotely evident in a one-game High Noon.

The Big 162 should never come down to the Big 163rd. One game of baseball shouldn’t decide anything but a pennant or a world championship, and only then after six games have preceded it. But it just might this year, for the Cincinnati Reds. With every passing day, the Reds chances of winning the Central and avoiding a nine-inning dice-roll diminish.

For the record: Since June 20, the Reds have been fewer than 3.5 games out of first place – their position before Thursday’s game – exactly nine days. That’s nine out of a possible 76. The Reds haven’t been in first place since April 22.

This could be a trend.

Nobody wants to play one game to determine a whole season. Certainly not the Reds, whose All In season will be considered a failure if they lose a wild-card game. The vagaries of one game aren’t fair to the three teams currently trying to avoid it. Simply: Are the Pirates or Cardinals that much better than Cincinnati that either deserves to avoid a one-game showdown? You couldn’t slip a sheet of paper between the three of them now.

“One bad play, one mistake, can cost you the season,’’ said Ryan Ludwick.

The randomness of one game won’t do justice to the seasons these teams have had. I’d suggest three games. Three games gives a team time to show all its talents. Certainly more than one game would.

A three-game series would not be decided by one dominant pitcher. It would not punish severely a team that had to use its two or three best starters on the last weekend of the Big 162, just to get into the postseason. Three games would be a more representative test.

If you’re worried about the length of the year, trim the regular year to 154 games. Then Big 154 endured for several decades. If you’re worried about what that would do to Baseball’s almighty statistics, well, what did the Steroid Era do to them?

A better solution? Cut two weeks from spring training, one in February and another in March. Schedule that first week of regular games in southern cities and in California, or in cities with retractable-roof stadiums. “If you were to ask the players -- shorter season or shorter spring training? -- they’d say shorter spring training,’’ Ludwick said.

Not everyone agrees. Jay Bruce likes the sudden-death scenario. As he pointed out, “The name of that game is ‘wild card’. The one team that’s electric enough in that game moves on.’’